[Infiniment Coty Paris] was launched to celebrate Coty’s 120th anniversary in 2024 and marked the rebirth of the Coty Paris brand. It was an integral part of Nabi’s overriding strategy for Coty — to “undefine” the notion of beauty.Despite the growth of the niche fragrance market, Infiniment was not a commercial success.
Most damaging, though, both from a perception point of view in the short term and a revenue perspective in the longer run, was the news that L’Oréal will be taking over Coty’s crown jewel license of Gucci when its license ends in 2028.
— Read more in What Went Wrong at Coty? at Women's Wear Daily.
Coty's quarterly loss stands out within the global beauty and personal care sector, an industry that has generally posted resilient consumer demand over the past two years. Peers such as Estée Lauder, L'Oréal, and Shiseido reported stable or improving margins in their most recent quarters, making Coty's $126.9 million deficit a notable outlier. The company's like-for-like revenue declined approximately 3% in the quarter, a reversal from the low-single-digit growth the company had guided investors to expect.
— Read more in Investigation Into Coty's $126.9 Million Quarterly Loss and Collapse of Earnings Expectations at Morningstar.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the fragrance line failed to meet expectations for one of two reasons. Younger consumers likely don’t know what Coty is and so have no impetus to try the line, not when there are so many other niche brands with well-established names. Older consumers associate the name with low-end drugstore fragrances from the sixties through the nineties and consider $300 a bottle way too much for a brand like that. I wonder how much research Coty did on their brand perception before trying to refashion it into something modern.
Coty is a mess…the failure of Infiniment is probably the least of their worries.
p.s. but agree with all you said!
Spot on.
I think blue was a very poor choice for a perfume brand…it looks odd and out of place. I don’t associate blue with perfume at all and I spend about 16 hours of each day thinking about perfume as you all know. ehaeheh 😆 I found the use of blue jarring when I first looked at their website and thought to myself…Boy, they are doomed. ehaeheh They recently released these crazy expensive intense versions w/ huge blue caps (link below) and labels which hurt my eyes. I have absolutely no background in marketing/advertising but it boggles my brain that well-paid folks mulled over the color and chose blue. 💙 Blue is associated w/ tech companies (link also below) so maybe they were trying to play up the technology they supposedly used to make these perfumes long lasting?
All that said, the main line perfumes are fair to middling. But Ambre Antique, the limited edition hype train, is a stunner…really beautiful.
https://www.fragrantica.com/news/Infiniment-Coty-Paris-Explores-the-Amber-Accord-With-Les-Osmiums-24329.html
https://brandingcompass.com/branding/color-theory-blue-as-a-branding-color/
Really sad about this, The Ambre Antique is lovely, I do wish they had rereleased the IFRA compliant reconstructed fragrances that Daphne Bugey had done for them recently.